Communal Relations in the Villages of Thrace and Lower Moesia in the First Centuries AD
Martemyanov Alexei P.
The definition of rural community and applicability of the term to lands in Roman provinces is disputable. The author tries to analyse the data concerning communal relations in Lower Moesia and Thrace, East Balkan Roman provinces where, as it is widely assumed, communal traditions inherited from the earlier times are thought to have been especially strong in the first centuries AD. It appears that the relevant sources allow to admit the existence of self-government in the villages of Lower Moesia. The same could be true for Thrace, but there are no clear indications of it in the sources. Among the manifestations of peasants’ collectivism attested in the inscriptions one can see worship of those gods whom the peasants considered their personal patrons, as well as other common dedications to the gods and emperors. It is not improbable that they bore mutual responsibility for the tasks imposed on them. But the greatest part of the features characteristic of a rural community is not to be seen in the sources, which do not allow us to build a coherent image of communal life in those provinces. The author therefore considers the term «communal relations» to be more correct than «rural community» for the time and place in question. The term «communal relations» would enable scholars to study the role of such relations in the development of East Balkan Roman provinces, without having to solve the problem of how the relevant data fit in with the usual definition of rural community.